第八讲：American Way of Life.ppt

The United States of America Unit 11 12 American Way of Life 任课教师：席晓青 Contents I What ‘s America’s Self-image How do you understand the following sentence? One could say they agree above all about the value of disagreeing.(P169) What word can be best used to describe America? I What ‘s America’s Self-image Melting Pot Salad bowl Mosaic Kaleidoscope Internet Racial Assimilation Kaleidoscope II American Dream Liberty / Freedom Equality / Social Justice The central implication of freedom can be expressed as freedom from externally imposed restrictions. Liberty in the past means that people have the civil and political rights for voters. Now it may mean the freedom to do as one chooses. Social justice implies that even the lowest classes must be treated fairly, ideally with equality. Equality implies that there is no one class of citizens with a right to more favorable treatment under the law. level playing field / Karl Marx III stereotype Women’s Liberation Seneca Falls meeting （1848）began the first wave of the women’s movement. Lucretia Mott / Elizabeth Cady Stanton played an important part in this meeting. The Seneca Fall Declaration is regarded as the single most important document of the nineteenth-century American woman’s movement. Women in the 1950s were actually unhappy and they knew they had no right to be happy. Women and Negroes inferior (needing mastery)/ childlike (needing control) /without intelligence (not to be trusted to vote or to exercise judgment in public affairs.) Both Negroes and women were basically unthinking and thus inferior creatures, they were actually happier under the domination of masters. What is the improvement in the conditions of women’s lives? Women’ s voting right (1920) The conditions of American women were generally improved because of the development of technology. American women were becoming more educated. White middle-class women were living longer and having fewer children